. I touched
his cold forehead reverently, and then turned away, mourning him, heaven
knows, sincerely, and feeling thankful that when tempted sorely I had kept
my promise that day in the bush as I remembered his words, "We have fought
it out fairly."

CHAPTER XXVI

THE TRIAL

Geoffrey Ormond was duly laid to rest in Canadian soil, and it was long
before the disastrous expedition was mentioned among us. After all, its
painful record was not an unusual one, for even to-day, when wagon roads
have been driven into the mountain-walled forests where only the bear and
wood-deer roamed before, all who go out on the gold trail do not come
home. I was anxious to return to Fairmead, so that as soon as decency
permitted I called on Colonel Carrington, and though I longed to challenge
what he had said to Calvert, I contented myself with formally renewing my
previous request.

He listened with cold patience, but I did not like his very quietness,
and, though I believe that he sincerely regretted Ormond's death, I
fancied that he was looking more hopeful.

"I am afraid that you are again asking too much, and your request is
characterized rather by assurance than by common sense," he said. "I need
not recapitulate my former reasons, but, in addition to them, I wonder
whether you have read this. As you do not allude to it, you probably have
not."

He produced a clipping from a Winnipeg paper, and because Western
journalism is conducted in a refreshingly frank style of its own, I read
with growing resentment the following paragraph, which, the cutting being
still in my possession, is quoted verbatim. It commenced with the heading,
"The prosecutor skipped by the light of the moon," and continued: "In
connection with the recent arrest of three cattle thieves we have on good
authority a romantic story. The case is meanwhile hanging fire and won't
go off because of the mysterious absence of the prosecutor, one Lorimer of
Fairmead, who has vanished from off the prairie, and will probably not
appear again. Circumstances point to his being one of the frolicsome
Lotharios who occasionally find the old country sultry, and he apparently
developed a tenderness for the wife of one of the prisoners. As a result,
there were complications, and she left her home. The husband went to seek
her on the wide prairie, and some bad man, after trying to shoot him,
threw him into a sloo. We don't know whether this was the prosecutor, but
should t